How I Create Passive Income Through Physical Products

If you've been keeping up with my Weekly Little Notes over the past couple of weeks then you know we've been talking a lot about monetizing your brand. From getting over your money fears to how to keep your income consistent, we're going to be covering it all! But today I wanted to share one of my favorite ways to create passive income through creating and selling physical products!

But first, what is passive income?

Passive income is an income received on a regular basis, with little effort required to maintain it.

— Wikipedia

You may have heard the phrase "I make money in my sleep" before but does creating passive income mean you can create & release a product and people will automatically flock to it? Nope! Contrary to popular belief, in order to really begin making money from passive income, you not only need to create the product but you also need to create several paths or funnels that will continually make your audience aware of what you have to offer.

Most passive income types you'll see will come in the form of an ebook, a ready-to-watch workshop, an evergreen e-course or some type of easy to download product. In my case, my most profitable form of passive income comes in the form of a physical product. Yes, an actual tangible product that you can hold. Why did I decide to go this route? Well at first it wasn't intentional but I quickly realized that many people still love receiving things in the mail and appreciate a good physical book.

Currently my Ultimate Monthly & Weekly Business Planners and my book, The Blogpreneur account for about 75% of my monthly income. Whats crazy is I don't handle any customer service, shipping or fulfillment.

SO HOW DO I CREATE THESE?

CreateSpace is an online publishing company designed to help authors, musicians and filmmakers self-publish and sell their work online. What I love most about this resource is that there are no over-head cost and they handle all of the logistics for you! Their service prints your product on demand and takes out a percentage with every order. You then make royalties for every sale and receive your payment at the end of every month. Basically that means of the 3 products I mentioned before, I didn't have to pay anything up front to have them created!

SIDENOTE: I DESIGNED ALL OF MY PRODUCTS MYSELF AND ONLY PURCHASED THE PATTERNS THAT ARE USED FOR THE COVERS. TAKE MY BOOK THE BLOGPRENEUR FOR EXAMPLE, IT ONLY COST ME ABOUT $15 TO WRITE & LAUNCH AND IT BROUGHT IN A LITTLE OVER $1400 IN IT'S FIRST TWO WEEKS.

Like I mentioned before, I don't touch the shipping or any of the customer service PLUS my products are listed on Amazon which makes my products available globally. Whether you want to create some type of planner, a workbook or a novel, a system like CreateSpace is the way to go.

Depending on the product you want to create, you can also check out similar services like Blurb & LuLu.

SO HOW DO I KEEP SELLING IF I'M NOT 100% HANDS ON?

When it comes to passive income it's imperative for you to think of different ways to lead potential customers to what you have to offer while also giving value. This is still an on going process for me (I still have a few free workshops and email courses to put in place) but here's what I've done so far with positive results.

1. Adding in product links into existing relevant content. Whenever I create and launch a new product, I go back through some of my older content and I update them with links that either mention my product or use it as an example. Your content (even the old stuff) can be a gold mine!

2. Include products into my daily social media strategy. Just like I promote my blog posts multiple times per day, I also promote my products as well.

3. Share photos on Instagram. Yes I just mentioned including my products into my social media strategy but Instagram has become a beast of it's own! I intentionally shot styled photos (and received a few amazing ones from Rekita) of all of my products and share them frequently on the platform. I also include relevant hashtags to the captions as well. Not only do I receive high engagement on these pictures but it also generates a good amount of sales as well!

Another path I'm working on is creating a 7-day email course that will eventually lead to my book, The Blogpreneur by the 7th day. Get creative and don't be afraid of a little self-promotion!

Also, don't think you have to be in the industry of helping other business owners or bloggers in order to create passive income for your brand. Simply think about what you can give of value that your audience can easily purchase without you having to put too much work into it after it's released!

Ready to create your first passive income product? Click the button below to download your free passive income checklist!